Helen Bartter Crocker - The Green River of Kentucky

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HELEN BARTTER CROCKER

Research for The Kentucky Bicentennial Bookshelf is assisted by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Views expressed in the Bookshelf do not necessarily represent those of the Endowment.

Copyright 1976 by The University Press of Kentucky
Paperback edition 2009

The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College,
Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State University, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
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For Ken

Illustrations follow

EARLY KENTUCKY writers often refer to the valley of the Green River as Green River Country, suggesting a geographic and cultural unity that was more apparent than real. Cutting a wide east-west swath from the Appalachian foothills to the heart of the western Kentucky coal fields, the Green River valley extends from below the Tennessee border in the south to the Ohio River in the north. Echoing the valleys geographic contrast, its people, too, developed a diversity that defied the labeling of more unified areas.

The first example of diversity was the pattern of valley settlement: the southwest bank of the river attracted Revolutionary War veterans from Virginia and North Carolina claiming the land as military pay, while the northeast bank was more often settled by westward-moving Kentuckians or Pennsylvanians. During the Civil War the Green River separated the forces of the North and South, and valley loyalties were so divided that both armies blocked local river trade for security purposes. After the war the valleys diversity continued in the churches and politics, navigation and agricultural clashes, upriver and downriver jealousies, and environmentalist-industrialist infighting.

Despite their historical and geographical differences the people of the Green River valley developed a measure of unity. They showed a common pride in clearing the virgin forest, farming the rugged terrain, and developing a reputation for making newcomers feel at home. In the process they developed a sense of community, a community drawn together by the moving magnet of the river. The boast that their river had the greenest color, greatest depth, and best fishing of any river around could be heard from one end of the valley to the other. Sometimes they overcame their traditional individualism to cooperate in getting their river improved for navigation.

Thus a composite picture of the people living in the Green River valley is one of both unity and diversity. Historians who try to describe valley residents must balance these qualities, knowing that they are influenced by the distortion of their view. Perhaps no single historian can see the valley objectively or in its entirety.

The Indians who first inhabited the Green River valley left no written record of their experiences there, but they continued to claim the area for hunting. This made settlement difficult for the American pioneer who reached the valley about 1780. Nevertheless he began the record of life beside the Green River of Kentucky when he described his wilderness location for relatives left behind.

As the sons and grandsons of the pioneers continued to record Green River history, it became apparent that each generation approached the stream differently. The original settlers floated their boats downstream whenever the waters were high enough to get safely over the rocky shoals. Their sons, interested in bringing steamboats to the valley, convinced the state legislature to improve the Green River and its major tributary, the Barren, for slack-water navigation by a series of locks and dams.

When the Civil War made the rivers armed highways, federal authorities closed them to commercial traffic. During the industrial revolution that followed, a local corporation gained a near-monopoly of river trade. This prepared valley residents for federal control, and the Corps of Engineers undertook extensive improvements around the turn of the century. When the Great Depression nearly ended river trade, local citizens groups sought to convince the government of the valleys industrial potential. The need for cheap fuel in the 1950s and 1960s inspired federal funds for flood-control dams in the upper river and the modern locks in the lower river that opened up coal barging and recreation for the generations that followed.